Jennifer Gray Looks Unrecognizable as Cult Leader Gwen Shamblin in New Lifetime Movie
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Frazer Harrison/Getty Images; Jennifer Grey/Instagram
Jennifer Grey does a total transformation to play cult leader Gwen Shamblin.
On Monday, the 62-year-old Dirty Dancing star shared a first look at Lifetime's Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation on Instagram.
"call me gwen #starvingforsalvation #gwenshamblin @lifetime," she wrote alongside a photo of her with long blonde hair and smokey eye makeup while crediting her hairstylist Lyne Lapiana and Wig Maker Associates founder Rob Pickens.
RELATED: Jennifer Grey Gets Candid in 'Powerful' New Memoir 'Out of the Corner' : 'Take Back Your Narrative'
In November, Grey signed on to play the controversial religious leader in Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation, according to Deadline.
The film comes after the success of HBO docuseries The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin chronicled the rise and fall of Shamblin, who founded a wildly popular Christian diet program and later, the Remnant Fellowship Church in Tennessee.
In addition to Grey's Lifetime movie, Sarah Paulson is also set to play Shamblin in a scripted version of The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin, Deadline reports.
Rob Kim/Getty Jennifer Grey
RELATED: Dirty Dancing's Jennifer Grey Is Set to 'Return to Kellerman's' in Sequel: 'Next Chapter'
In addition to her portrayal of Shamblin, Grey will reprise the role of Frances "Baby" Houseman in the upcoming Dirty Dancing sequel.
Grey "returns to Kellerman's in the next chapter," it was revealed at CinemaCon in April.
The announcement came during Lionsgate's presentation at the convention, in which a voiceover teased Grey's return over footage from the original film, Entertainment Weekly reported.
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Although her involvement as Baby in Dirty Dancing a sequel had been known, the capacity of Grey's role is still being kept under wraps.
But a return to Kellerman's — the Catskills resort where she met Johnny Castle (Swayze) as a teen during the summer of 1963 that changed her life — seems to suggest that we might see Baby put on her dancing shoes again.
Grey opened up about making the sequel to PEOPLE in April.
"It was lightning in a bottle, it's like this thing happened, and it's so beautiful, and I can't explain it. No one can explain it," she shared. We're working on this sequel, I'm working on it with Lionsgate and working on the script."
"We've been working on it for a couple of years. And I know in my heart, I would love to give fans or a young, new audience an experience that would never replicate that, but has the same kind of underpinnings," she continued. "Today people think that their identity is limited, the world has told them what it is. But there are certain people who can see other parts of you."
"Dirty Dancing was a fairytale, a successful movie and formula, using dance as a metaphor for embodying your energy and getting out of your head, and your limiting belief systems."
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Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation premieres on Lifetime on February 4, 2023.
